I got drawn into the space week programs on my cable network and was wondering are there any good free form space sim where you can fly around and explore galaxies, planets, moons, super novas, asteroid belts, and etc... both on and off planet?

Something like X2 or Homeworld in space mode with full planetary / moon exploration (perhaps like a high detailed RTS or better yet, 1st or 3rd person UT like exploration).

Combat can be part of the game but a rich, detailed explore mode is what I;m currently looking for. It can be our galaxy or some ficticious ones?

Any recommendations out there? Or do I have to switch back and forth between Homeworld, X2, and Freespace to get my fix?

I got drawn into the space week programs on my cable network and was wondering are there any good free form space sim where you can fly around and explore galaxies, planets, moons, super novas, asteroid belts, and etc... both on and off planet?

Something like X2 or Homeworld in space mode with full planetary / moon exploration (perhaps like a high detailed RTS or better yet, 1st or 3rd person UT like exploration).

Combat can be part of the game but a rich, detailed explore mode is what I;m currently looking for. It can be our galaxy or some ficticious ones?

Any recommendations out there? Or do I have to switch back and forth between Homeworld, X2, and Freespace to get my fix?

okay, i see you are an |337 player. who want an exporation game with huge space , huge number of planet, commerce, fight , etc...

you understood. nothing of these game allow a REAL space exploration.
X² , that sucks dude !!! god , my room is larger than its solar system.

Freelancer should be the best game for all these gameplay side.

but i will be servant this time. .

i found a projet in developpement , a space exploration / combat /mmorpg.
its quit early :-/.However , this only dev is a master , really .

he is programming a procedural univers , wich will permit to explore million of planet . at least few thousand.
the best is we will can land on these planet / moon/asteroid WITHOUT any loading or cinematic !!!

its really IN-CRE-DI-BLE. there are few videos on the game site and the dev journal (he update any changemnet or technique problem solving ...)

the most incredible stuff is the surface algorithm. the more you approch of the surface of planet, the most "land noise" it create.

the result is an incredible level of detail , without ANY modeling .
with only few variable , the game engine create in real time the surface, the tree, the water, and the athmosphere.
the gravity is working , the planets are rotating around their star.
dont know for the space vassel.

anyway, the game is not enough worked for speak about this .
but i HOPE with all my heart this projet will be finish.

I got drawn into the space week programs on my cable network and was wondering are there any good free form space sim where you can fly around and explore galaxies, planets, moons, super novas, asteroid belts, and etc... both on and off planet?

Frontier: Elite 2 was the only game that came anywhere near pulling that off. I heard David Braben was thinking about doing a new Elite game. Considering what Elite 2 could do on a 512K Amiga 500, a modern game engine would kick ass. The one stisoas posted looks promising.

Since you said "sim", you should check out celestia @ http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ . It´s not really a "game" though, its a sim and there are over 1GB of mods available for it, incl. a stars database with over 20 million stars.

Since you said "sim", you should check out celestia @ http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ . It´s not really a "game" though, its a sim and there are over 1GB of mods available for it, incl. a stars database with over 20 million stars.

Cool, thanks for the link! That looks like a lot of fun to play with sometime when I'm bored.

That game looks pretty awesome and is close to what I was thinking! I'll keep and eye on that.

agentkay

I was looking at Celetia but wanted a bit more interactivity and didn't want to stay stuck in outer atmosphere only. It would be cool if someone took the Celetia concept and created "game missions" for it.

Another one I found is Orbiter (Shuttle Sim) that includes both in and out of atmosphere flight / exploration:

Its definitly much more an education software than an actual game but I find it quite amazing (and being freeware). Just a minor example, you can go the Sun, turn around towards the Earth, press the F4 key (the Lightspeed key) and in 8 minutes you reach the Earth. Its great that you get an illustration how fast (or slow) actually the light travels.

Thanks for the Orbiter link, seems very interesting and I will definitly download it!